
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf AK?-^ 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




THE 



NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 



FRANCIS GELLATLY. 



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CHICAGO: 
KNIGHT & LEONARD. 

1886. 



Lr 3 



Copyright, 1886, 
By FRANCIS GELLATLY 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



LIKE the ocean after a storm has passed* 
_j when the waves are in commotion 
though the wind has subsided, the Ameri- 
can people are still agitated by the blast of 
war which blew so fiercely over our country 
now nearly a quarter of a century ago. 
This state of affairs puzzles the politicians, 
and as they toss about in their little canoes 
upon the sea of public opinion, many of 
them are hoisting their sails to catch a 
breeze which no longer exists, and in a 
condition of agitated imbecility a*re peering 
about the horizon wondering which way 
the wind blows; some are even demented 
enough to think they can fill their sails 
with their own feeble breath, and are puff- 
ing away like mad in ludicrous imitation of 
the storm that has gone by. But their 
actions, which make them ridiculous, have 

3 



4 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

a motive which should cause them to be 
despised. They would willingly raise the 
storm again. The following pages are 
written in deprecation of the spirit that 
animates them. 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 



FROM beyond the mountains by the 
peaceful sea to the forests of far-dis- 
tant Maine, from the flowery land by the 
stormy gulf to the region where the beau- 
tiful lakes press their heaving bosoms 
against our northern shores, the territory 
of the great republic presents a scene of 
loveliness and fertility not to be found any- 
where else on the globe. The government 
of this country is also one the like of which 
exists in no other part of the world, and 
which, before its creation, was unknown to 
mankind. The spectacle of one great cen- 
tral republic round which revolve other 
lesser republics like planets round the sun, 
has attracted the gaze and admiration of 
statesmen from the day of its first appear- 
ance in the political heavens till now. No 
such governmental solar system has ever 

5 



6 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

existed before. Its centripetal and cen- 
trifugal forces produce a harmony of action 
among its members similar to that of the 
denizens of the skies. Unhappily for us 
there was a time when some of these plan- 
ets shot madly from their orbits and chaos 
seemed come again. It is a cause of joy 
however to every intelligent lover of his 
country that these perturbations have 
ceased, and that harmony of action again 
prevails. Every day it becomes more ap- 
parent that the welfare of the United 
States depends on their union. There are 
no longer any advocates of secession. But 
while this is true it cannot be denied that 
when the southern states seceded they had 
many excuses for their action. Let us look 
at the facts : 

When the late war broke out, a certain 
social condition stood like a high wall be- 
tween the North and the South, separating 
them practically into two distinct commu- 
nities having nothing in common but the 
political bands which held them together. 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 7 

That wall was the institution of slavery, 
which was looked upon by many in the 
North with mingled hatred and horror. 
Far differently was it regarded by the peo- 
ple among whom it prevailed, and whatever 
may be our opinions, a candid considera- 
tion of the subject will show us that they 
had many excuses for the favor with which 
they looked upon it. 

In the first place it had been handed 
down to them from generation to genera- 
tion for hundreds of years. Their fathers, 
grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and great- 
great-grandfathers had been slaveholders. 
From babyhood to manhood it was blended 
with every incident of their daily life. The 
attachment of a southerner to his old black 
mammy and- his faithful body servant was 
among the strongest feelings of his nature. 
The system thus hallowed by ancestral tra- 
dition and domestic affection was also justi- 
fied by the men who directed his steps 
toward heaven through the teachings of 
Holy Writ. He was taught from the Bible 



8 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY, 

that the Almighty commanded his favored 
people to buy bondmen 1 of the stranger, 
and called slaves the money of their mas- 
ters 2 ; that the founder of Christianity jus- 
tified by a parable the selling of a slave, 
his wife and children, to pay a debt which 
he owed his master 3 ; that St. Paul com- 
manded slaves to obey their masters, not 
with eye service as men pleas ers, but as 
serving God 4 ; that the same apostle sent 
back to his master, Onesimus, a runaway 
slave. 5 Thus we see that he was taught 
that the Bible justified every part of the 
institution by which he was surrounded ; 
that God called men the property of men ; 
that he directed their purchase ; that Christ 
approved of their sale ; that St. Paul com- 
manded the obedience of slaves to their 
masters as a duty they owed to God, and 
that he practically carried out the principles 
of the fugitive slave law by returning to 
his master a runaway slave. 

i Leviticus xxv, 44. 2 Exodus xxi, 20, 21. 3 Matthew xiii, 
2 3 _ 34> 4 Ephesians vi, 6,7. 5 Philemon, 12. 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 9 

The constitution of his country also rec- 
ognized his right to his slaves. By it he 
was permitted to import slaves from Africa 
for a period of twenty-one years after the 
formation of our government. By it, also, 
his countrymen were commanded to return 
to him his slaves if they should run away 
from him and seek freedom in another 
state. When, therefore, the example of 
his ancestors, the teachings of his priests 
and their holy book, the precepts and prac- 
tice of the founders of his religion and the 
institutions of his country, sanctioned a 
system the incidents of which were the 
first ideas impressed on his infantile mind, 
and with which from childhood up he had 
been hourly familiar, it was natural that he 
should regard it with favor, and that he 
should consider any attempt to deprive him 
of it an attack upon his rights. To his 
mind nothing could be more dreadful than 
the destruction of the institution. To de- 
stroy it would be to tear up by the roots 
the social system of the South. The fear 



10 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

that the North would one day do so was 
the cause of his attempt to leave the Union. 
Will anyone say that he had not some 
ground for his fear ? He felt that Mr. Sew- 
ard spoke the truth when he said there was 
an irrepressible conflict between freedom 
and slavery. He trembled before the 
storm of indignation raised in the North 
by the attempt to enforce the fugitive slave 
law ; a law which the constitution provided 
for, and which the highest tribunal in the 
land declared to be valid. His slaves also 
were becoming too numerous for the terri- 
tory which he occupied, and time would 
only make matters worse. For this reason 
he claimed the right to go with them into 
the unoccupied land belonging to all the 
United States in common. To prevent his 
doing so a large party, called the free-soil 
party, was organized at the North. In 
addition to all this, men from the free states 
rose in the Senate and denounced slavery 
as the sum of all human villainies, and in- 
sinuated that a slaveholder was guilty of 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. II 

every crime in the calendar. It made no 
difference to them what the Bible said 
about it. If God commanded and St. Paul 
sustained it, they, nevertheless, begged 
leave to differ. A famous abolitionist was 
even heard to say that he did not want any 
slave-breeding Jesus. 

In view of all these things the slave- 
holder felt that he was no longer safe in 
the Union, and he tried to leave it. He 
claimed that the laws of the land permitted 
him to do so as a matter of right. He said 
he did not propose to interfere with any- 
body else ; he merely wished to be let 
alone. When the southern people at- 
tempted to secede they believed them- 
selves to be the injured party and that 
they were merely asserting their rights. 
They believed the existence of their insti- 
tution was threatened, and what they did 
was an attempt at self-preservation. They 
should not be blamed for this. Self-pres- 
ervation is the first law of nature. What 
have they not suffered in defense of what 



12 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

they believed to be their rights? Their 
lands have trembled beneath the tread of 
invading hosts marshaled in battle array to 
subdue them ; their fields have been laid 
waste ; their cities have been burned to the 
ground ; their door sills have been stained 
by the blood of fathers and sons defending 
their homes ; their citizenship has been 
taken from them and for a time their slaves 
have been made their masters. We have 
done all this to them. While the process 
of what is called reconstruction was going 
on, conventions were often controlled by 
negroes and disreputable characters from 
the North, whose education for the function 
of organizing states had been generations 
of slavery and lives of chicanery. These 
were the people selected to remodel south- 
ern institutions. Elections were held un- 
der the supervision of the military, and 
managed by negroes, at which nobody but 
newly emancipated slaves did or could 
vote. 

Surely the southern people have suffered 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 1 3 

enough. It is time to stop sneering at 
them as rebels. The feeling that prompts 
it is incompatible with that harmony 
among us which alone can secure the per- 
manency of our institutions. It is practical 
disunion. We cannot love our country and 
hate our countrymen. It is time to fill our 
hearts with a true love for our country. 
We should tear from our eyes the veil of 
prejudice which prevents us from seeing in 
a true light the noble character of the men 
whom we sneer at as rebels ; those true 
Americans ; those unadulterated descend- 
ants of our revolutionary sires ; those men 
who have Marion and Henry and Jefferson 
and Washington to their fathers. Mis- 
taken, misguided they may have been, but 
they never deserted a friend nor quailed 
before a foe. We should think of them no 
longer as rebels, enemies, but rather as 
brothers, Americans. Till we can do so it 
is idle to call ourselves Union i men. It is 
the veriest mockery. We inhabit a territory 
which can never be separated ; but while 



14 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

our hearts are estranged we can never be 
united. And yet we insist upon a union. 
Do we wish to yoke ourselves forever to a 
people whom we cannot love? Be assured 
that if our affections do not change the day 
will come when we will be ready to ex- 
claim in the language of St. Paul, "Who 
shall deliver me from the body of this 
death ?" This dead union. We should no 
longer listen to the lying demagogues who 
fill our ears with nameless infamies which 
they tell us these people delight to commit. 
Remember it is millions of people whom 
they accuse of chronic murder and outrage. 
People among whom the gray grandsire and 
the beardless stripling stood side by side 
before the hail of lead and iron on the field 
of battle, dying in defense of a cause in 
behalf of which they appealed to the same 
God whom we adore. Let us remember 
they are Christians, and that in the nature 
of things it is impossible they can be that, 
which, for basely selfish ends, our poli- 
ticians would have us believe they are. If 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 1 5 

we must dwell on the memories of the late 
war, let it not be in bitterness. Rather let 
us sigh in pity for the fate of that host 
of unnumbered brave on both sides who 
shouldered muskets and went to the war; 
who toiled after their leaders on foot, in 
heat, in cold, in sunshine and in rain, often- 
times hungry and weary; who never re- 
turned ; whose names and even the places 
where they were blotted out from among 
mankind are forgotten ; on whose unknown 
graves the kind hand of autumn spreads 
her withered leaves, fit emblem of their 
fate ; over whom the winds of the forest 
sigh a mournful requiem as they sleep. 

The history of our country furnishes 
other battle pictures upon which we can all 
gaze without the pain which these memo- 
ries give. When the piratical subjects of 
the Emperor of Morocco made depreda- 
tions on our commerce we declared war 
against that potentate, and the bay of Tri- 
poli was the scene of one of the most 
brilliant naval exploits on record, which 



l6 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

» 
covered our flag with glory and the gallant 

Decatur with imperishable fame. After- 
ward, when "the meteor flag of England" 
blazed over the seas, the terror of the 
world, and when in the pride of uninter- 
rupted victory she boarded our ships and 
seized our sailors, our plucky little navy 
went forth and in many a fierce conflict 
caused that haughty flag to droop before its 
prowess. This war was closed by a glo- 
rious battle fought at the city of New Or- 
leans, where American heroes drove foreign 
invaders from our soil. After adding to 
these deeds of our arms the splendid con- 
quest of Mexico we can truly say that when 
we rallied so enthusiastically round our flag 
at the opening of the war against secession, 
everything that made it glorious had al- 
ready been achieved. On it were inscribed 
victories against foreign foes only, and 
there we read and exultingly remembered 
Tripoli, Lake Chai??plain, Lake Erie, Lun- 
dy's Lane, New Orleans, Palo Alto, Resaca 
de la Palma, Monterey, Buena Vista, Vera 



THE NECKLACE OE LIBERTY. 1 7 

Cruz, Cherubusco, Chepultepec, Cerro Gor- 
do, Contreras, Molino del Rey, Mexico. 
Borne aloft in patriotic hands, everywhere 
on land and sea its stars had gleamed 
through the storm and smoke of battle in 
the face of foreign enemies. Happily for 
us it had not then waved in triumph over 
the prostrate bodies of our countrymen. 
Charles Sumner in the United States senate 
objected to placing the names of the sad 
conflicts of the late war on its glittering 
folds. He was right, for it is the flag of the 
Union, and nothing upon it should record 
the humiliation of any part of our common 
country. Charles Sumner, whatever else 
he may have been, was a great man, and in 
this he showed it ; but the pigmies of his 
party who live by peddling a spurious pa- 
triotism to madden their countrymen, as 
some men live by selling bad whiskey, op- 
posed him, and in the name of love for the 
Union sought, by refusing his request, to 
perpetuate sectional division. They are at 
the same work now. These demagogues 



1 8 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

form a contemptible faction born of hate, 
nursed by sedition, maintained by anarchy, 
and which is at present endeavoring to pro- 
long its inexcusable existence by the mem- 
ory of its past iniquities. 

The most effectual antidote for their poi- 
son is a thorough and candid study of the 
constitution of our country, upon which, as 
a thread running through them, are strung 
the states of the Union like a necklace of 
pearls on the bosom of liberty. Break the 
thread and the necklace is destroyed. Our 
ancestors declared that they ordained it to 
secure the blessings of liberty to them- 
selves and their posterity, and history has 
thus far proved that if we are to be free we 
must obey it. How long we shall continue 
to enjoy freedom is one of the secrets of 
the future, but it may be safely said that 
when we abandon our constitution we will 
say good-bye to liberty. When we remem- 
ber who framed it and recall the names of 
Washington, Adams, Franklin, Madison, 
Hamilton and others like them, we are 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 1Q 

aware that patriotism, wisdom, and state- 
craft presided at their councils. Among 
the men of to-day who attempt to cast dis- 
credit on their work by sneering at the 
constitution, we do not find any who are 
their equals. These latter-day pundits talk 
of that instrument as if it were a mere 
piece of paper, and not a system of rules 
for government based on the profoundest 
knowledge of history, politics, and human 
nature. 

If there is anything men know utterly, 
and in regard to which nothing new can be 
known, it is the science of government. 
This was true at the time the constitution 
of the United States was established, and 
the men who framed it possessed all this 
knowledge and were guided entirely by 
patriotic wisdom. Let us not, then, listen 
to those who tell us it is a thing of the 
past, unworthy of this enlightened age. 
Rather let us search this scripture, for in it 
we may well think we have national life. 
It is founded on the theory that the people 



20 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

in every state are the sovereign rulers, but 
that they should express their will deliber- 
ately in fixed rules of action, and not whim- 
sically on the spur of the moment. It is 
also based on the theory that the people in 
a state may be too numerous to meet to- 
gether and act in person, and that in con- 
sequence they must act by representatives 
who are to be governed in what they do 
by the will of the people written down for 
their guidance. It is also founded on the 
theory that though the people should gov- 
ern themselves deliberately and by fixed 
rules, they should also be at liberty to 
change those rules whenever they see fit ; 
that the written word should not remain 
any longer than it is found to be salu- 
tary. Therefore the constitution is not made 
a cast-iron form incapable of undulating 
with the stream of events. On the con- 
trary, if any new conjuncture of affairs ar- 
rives which may render a modification of it 
desirable, it can be adjusted to such new 
conditions. Or if in its workings it dis- 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 21 

pleases the people in any particular, they 
can change it. It is servile to the will of 
its creators and bends to their inclinations. 
Lastly, it is founded on the theory that the 
people of the United States do not govern 
themselves as one political entity, but as 
several. That is to say, not as one insep- 
arable body of people, but as distinct polit- 
ical communities acting together. These 
are the fundamental ideas of our govern- 
ment which we must cling to if we would 
keep our liberty. They preserve us alike 
from the tyranny of the mob and the rule 
of the despot. They are our safeguards 
against singular and plural oppression. 
They also provide for trimming the sails of 
the ship of state to catch every favoring 
wind of circumstance. Let us examine 
them a little more minutely. 

I. 

The notion that sovereignty resides in 
the people can only be partially realized. 
The will of all the people can never prevail, 



22 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

Even in the adoption of our constitution it 
did not, for there was a large body of the 
people who opposed it, and only a meager 
majority were in favor of it. There must 
always be, even in republics, a large num- 
ber of persons whose wishes and desires are 
overruled by their fellow citizens. All the 
people never can bear sway in any nation, 
and the only practical difference between a 
monarchy and a democracy is in the num- 
ber of the rulers. In the monarchy one 
man claims the right to rule; in the demo- 
cracy all men claim the right, though only 
some obtain it. The real dissimilarity con- 
sists in the claim of the right and not in 
the possession of it. The people, in the 
sense of the whole body of the community, 
never in any nation govern. This must 
ever be the fate of men ; for although it 
may be true that the people have a right to 
govern themselves, some must submit to 
the will of others when they do not agree, 
if there is to be any government at all. 
The will of the majority is the nearest ap- 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 23 

proach to a government by the people that 
can be obtained. Government by the peo- 
ple must always mean government by some 
of the people; There is a sense, however, 
in which the will of all the people prevails. 
In a government where they all meet to 
deliberate in person or by representatives, 
and have agreed unanimously that the will 
of the majority shall prevail, when the mi- 
nority are overruled, they have already given 
their consent to be thus governed. They 
have previously agreed that they shall not 
govern themselves, but that the majority 
shall govern them. They govern them- 
selves by agreeing that they shall not gov- 
ern. This is the inevitable paradox con- 
tained in the proposition that the people 
govern. Within these limitations the 
proposition that sovereignty resides in the 
people is true, and the theory of the consti- 
tution in that respect is correct. 



24 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

II. 

The idea of the constitution, that the 
people should govern themselves by fixed 
written rules must of necessity prevail in a 
republic so large that the people cannot all 
meet together for deliberation. The peo- 
ple in such a nation must govern by repre- 
sentatives and not in person. If the will 
of the people in such circumstances is to 
prevail at all, it must be in directions given 
to their agents, and in order that no mis- 
take may occur, these directions should be 
written and be before the eyes of the 
agents all the time. A general command 
by the people to the agents to go and make 
laws without limiting the authority, would 
be in effect surrendering the entire govern- 
ing power to their agents, and the repre- 
sentatives instead of being servants would 
be masters. The people would not govern 
themselves at all. It is clear, then, that in 
order to govern they must give instructions 
to their representatives. Yet if every body 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 25 

of electors were to instruct its representa- 
tives from time to time as the whim suited, 
inevitable and interminable vacillation and 
confusion would fill the legislative hall. 
Each representative would reflect the craze 
of the hour prevalent in his district. There 
would be no uniformity of action, and the 
most vital principles of government would 
be at the mercy of men whose ignorance 
and excitement unfitted them to pass upon 
them. There would be no method in legis- 
lation, for there would be no fixed princi- 
ple to guide the legislators. This is pred- 
icated only of a nation where every citizen 
has a voice in the management of its affairs. 
In the case of a nation whose rulers are 
foreigners who have invaded the country 
which they govern, and despoiled the na- 
tives of their lands and liberty, like En- 
gland at the time of the conquest, the 
legislators have no guide but their own 
interests, and act for nobody but them- 
selves. The passions stamped in their 
hearts is the only constitution which they 



26 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

read and obey. But even in such a case 
the invaders soon discover that if each is 
to keep his share of the booty he must not 
interfere with the shares of the others, and 
they apply the rules of justice in the man- 
agement of that which they have obtained 
by injustice. If they are able men they 
make wise laws to regulate themselves, 
which in time they extend to those whom 
they have despoiled, discovering at last 
that their own welfare is bound up in that 
of the nation. Such rules and the princi- 
ples on which they are founded, declared 
in the great charter extorted by the baY- 
ons from one of the English kings, in acts 
of parliament and decisions of the courts, 
form what is termed to-day the constitu- 
tion of England. It is as truly a written 
constitution as that of America, though 
not as regularly and compactly stated. It 
differs, also, from that of the United States, 
in the circumstance that it was born by the 
labor of centuries and not of a single 
epoch. So that the English cannot be 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 2/ 

cited as a free people who govern them- 
selves without a written constitution. 
When England was governed without one 
the English were not a free people. The 
men who rail at our constitution and 
claim that congress should have no guide 
but its own wisdom, cannot point to the 
parliament of England as a legislature 
making laws without a written constitution 
before them. The English only obtained 
their liberty after centuries of struggle. 
We inherited the liberty they obtained and 
began, a free nation, having their written 
constitution as a pattern in making ours. 
These written instructions, however, must, 
in the nature of the case, be confined to 
the statement of general principles and 
objects of legislation, and carrying them 
out in detail must be left to the discretion 
of the legislators chosen to represent the 
people. 



28 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

III. 

The theory of the constitution that we 
act together as several political communities 
and not as one is the root from which 
sprung all its branches and which gives it 
life. It is the test by which alone its con- 
stituents can be analyzed. It is the only 
principle which can harmonize its provi- 
sions. On the theory that the American 
people govern themselves as one political 
entity its provisions are confused and con- 
tradictory. Let us look, into the wording 
of the constitution and see if we can find 
these assertions true. To begin with the 
beginning, the preamble says, "We, the 
people of the United States, in order to 
form a more perfect union " 

The first observation to be made on these 
words is that they assume the existence of 
a United States, of a union and of a people 
in some way connected with the United 
States. The object to be accomplished is 
not to create a union, but to make a more 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 2Q 

perfect union than one already in exist- 
ence. What was that union, and when did 
it begin to exist? The first suggestion of a 
union was made by a British secretary of 
state for the purpose of enabling the col- 
onies to make a treaty with the Indian 
tribes. The first plan of a union was pro- 
posed by Dr. Franklin, and was adopted by 
a convention of representatives from seven 
of the colonies in 1754. This union never 
had any other existence than that given to 
it by the votes of the convention. It did 
not go into effect. In 1765 ten colonies met 
by representatives. This was the first con- 
tinental congress. Twelve colonies met 
again in 1775. This congress continued 
in existence till 1789, and made the Dec- 
laration of Independence and the Arti- 
cles of Confederation. The only union up 
to the time of the Declaration was an 
agreement by the colonies to act in concert 
for the preservation of their liberties, and 
the only liberties they claimed were those 
possessed by all Englishmen. By the Dec- 



30 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

laration they claimed to be free and inde- 
pendent states, and called themselves the 
United States of America, and changed 
their union from an agreement to act in 
concert for liberty only to one for the pur- 
pose of obtaining the independence and 
powers of sovereign states. They made 
good their declaration by arms, and En- 
gland relinquished all claim of dominion 
over them and acknowledged each of them 
to be a free, sovereign, and independent 
state. The union that had hitherto existed 
between them was not for the purpose of 
establishing a government, but merely to 
keep the liberty and obtain the independ- 
ence of each state. 

The union for the purpose of establish- 
ing a government between the states first 
began to exist in 1781, when all the states 
had agreed to the constitution called " Ar- 
ticles of Confederation and Perpetual Union 
between the States." This union, by the 
Articles, was called a confederacy and 
named the United States of America. The 



THE NECKLACE OE LIBERTY. 31 

union under these Articles continued till 
the adoption of our present constitution. 
Everything done by the colonies or states 
up to the time of the Articles of Confedera- 
tion had been done as individuals indepen- 
dent of each other but acting together by 
agreement among themselves. They had 
styled their meetings congresses, which, 
when applied to states, is a phrase only 
used to describe the meetings of the repre- 
sentatives of independent and sovereign 
powers. In these congresses each state had 
but one vote. In the congress which made 
the Declaration the colonies declared them- 
selves to be free and independent states. 
The same body as the congress of inde- 
pendent states, prepared the Articles of 
Confederation which were submitted to 
each state separately and by each separ- 
ately adopted. 

The second article of this plan of confed- 
eration reads, "Each state retains its sov- 
ereignty, freedom, and independence, and 
every power, jurisdiction, and right which is 



32 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

not by this confederation expressly dele- 
gated to the United States in congress 
assembled." Here is a declaration of the 
existence of previous sovereignty in each 
state and of a determination to retain it. 
The legislative body of the United States 
under this constitution was called "the 
United States in congress assembled." In 
other words, it was a meeting of the several 
states for the purpose of making laws. In 
this meeting each state acted as an indi- 
vidual and had one vote. So far the people 
of the United States had acted together as 
separate political communities in governing 
themselves. Previous to the adoption of 
our present constitution there had been 
three unions, an agreement among the col- 
onies to act together for the purpose of pre- 
serving their liberties as Englishmen, an 
agreement to act together for the purpose 
of making themselves independent and sov- 
ereign states, and an agreement among 
those states to act together as a confederacy 
under one government for special purposes, 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 33 

each state retaining its sovereignty, freedom, 
and independence, and every power incident 
to that condition not expressly surrendered 
by the agreement of confederation. These 
were the people, these the United States, 
and this the union implied as already exist- 
ing, referred to in the words of the pream- 
ble above quoted. 

The preamble asserts that these people 
"do ordain and establish this constitution 
for the United States of America." There 
is nothing predicated of the manner of 
their action. They merely say, We do this 
thing. They had already done a great 
many things and they had always done 
them in the same way. They had always 
acted together as separate political commu- 
nities. They had met in congresses, to delib- 
erate, as independent states. They ordained 
and established our present constitution in 
precisely the same manner. The document 
was submitted to each state separately, and 
was by each separately ratified. Nay, more, 
the constitution itself provided that it 
3 



34 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

should be so established, and that it should 
be binding only between the states which 
should ratify it. 

Article VII says, "The ratification of the 
conventions of nine states shall be sufficient 
for the establishment of this constitution 
between the states so ratifying the same." 
It will be observed that this article provides 
for the formation of a United States con- 
sisting of only nine states in the event of 
no greater number ratifying it. There were 
in the Union at the time the preamble and 
the rest of the constitution were framed, 
thirteen states, so that it contemplated a 
possible separation of the states. And yet 
there are people, with this staring them in 
the face, who contend that the wording of 
the preamble proves that the constitution 
was ordained by one inseparable body, the 
people, irrespective of states, and not by the 
states. So far from considering themselves 
an inseparable body, the people who spoke 
in the preamble provided for their action as 
states and for a possible separation of the 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 35 

states then united. And for a time such a 
separation did actually exist after the con- 
stitution went into operation, some of the 
states refusing to come into the new union. 
Besides this the convention that framed 
the constitution was a congress or meeting 
of states which were assembled as individ- 
ual sovereignties, and not as an undivided 
political community. This Article VII also 
explains the phrase in the preamble, "Con- 
stitution for the United States." It was a 
constitution intended to be binding on the 
states which should adopt it, and on none 
other. It was not a constitution intended 
to be binding on a number of natural indi- 
viduals organized in an inseparable politi- 
cal community. In adopting our present 
constitution the people of the United States 
acted as they always had done. They 
acted together in states as separate politi- 
cal communities. 



36 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

IV. 

They provided in it for the same mode 
of action under it. The functions to be 
performed under the constitution are legis- 
lative, administrative, and judicial. The 
fulfillment of these functions is made to de- 
pend directly or indirectly on the action of 
the states. Article I says, "All the legis- 
lative powers herein granted shall be vested 
in a Congress of the United States, which 
shall consist of a Senate and House of Rep- 
resentatives." A congress of the United 
States and the United States in congress 
assembled, which was the name given to 
the legislature in the Articles of Confedera- 
tion, have the same meaning. They signify 
a meeting of the United States. As already 
said, the word " congress " when applied to 
states is the name given to an assemblage 
of the representatives of sovereign and in- 
dependent powers. It is a name never used 
for the legislature of a single sovereignty, 
and its use in the constitution points to the 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 37 

fact that the framers of that instrument had 
in mind the idea that what was to be done 
in congress was to be performed by and for 
the benefit of sovereign and independent 
states. It was the name used before the 
constitution for every meeting of the states, 
and was used in the constitution because it 
was intended to describe the same kind of 
assemblage. The states had done every- 
thing in congress assembled and were to 
continue the same way of acting. 

When we look into the manner of ap- 
pointing delegates to the congress this no- 
tion is confirmed. The congress is to con- 
sist of a senate and house of representa- 
tives, which are names used merely to dis- 
tinguish one body from another, for they 
are both composed of representatives. The 
senators are chosen by the states acting by 
their legislatures. The votes of the sena- 
tors are called the suffrage of the states, 
that is to say, the voices of the states, and 
they are equally potent. The voice of one 
is not stronger than that of another.* In 

:;: U. S. Constitution. Art. V. 



38 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

the senate, then, the states are clearly rep- 
resented as acting, and its acts are the acts 
of the states, according to the words and 
theory of the constitution. No law can be 
passed, nor administrative or judicial officer 
appointed without the consent of the sen- 
ate. Therefore there is not a function of 
the government, legislative, administrative, 
or judicial, which does not depend directly 
or indirectly on the votes of the senators, 
which the constitution defines to be the 
suffrage of the states. The voices of the 
states in the senate determine every legis- 
lative act and appoint every administrative 
and judicial officer except one. The or- 
ganization and powers of the senate alone 
prove the proposition that the fulfillment 
of every function, legislative, administra- 
tive, and judicial, provided for by the con- 
stitution, depends directly or indirectly on 
the action of the states. The organization 
and powers of the house of representatives 
furnish additional proof of the same thing. 
The constitution says that representatives 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 39 

shall be apportioned among the several 
states according to their respective num- 
bers, but that each state shall have at least 
one representative. They are apportioned 
among the states ; that is to say, they are 
divided among the states, and a portion or 
certain number given to each. The number 
that each state is entitled to is to be deter- 
mined by the number of its inhabitants. 
They are not apportioned among the people 
of the United States, but among the United 
States, and they are called the representa- 
tives of the states in the phrase which says: 
"Each state shall have at least one repre- 
sentative."* 

The difference between the senators and 
the representatives is not in their represen- 
tative quality, but in the manner of their 
appointment, the duration of their office, 
and the nature of some of their functions. 
The senators are chosen by the states act- 
ing by their legislatures and the represen- 
tatives by the states acting as individual 
men. Like the senators, the representatives 

* U. S. Constitution. Art. I, Sec. 2. 



40 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

have legislative functions, but have no voice 
in the appointment of administrative or 
judicial officers, with one very important 
exception, and that is in the choice of Pres- 
ident of the United States. The house of 
representatives when the other provisions 
of the constitution fail, choose the President. 
Their manner of doing this proves conclu- 
sively that they are representatives of states 
and not of particular numbers of their 
inhabitants. The words of the constitution 
are, "But in choosing the President the 
votes shall be taken by states, the represen- 
tation from each state having one vote." The 
constitution provides in another place that 
the states shall elect the President by a 
different process. Here it provides that the 
states shall elect the President by their 
representatives in congress, each state 
having one vote. It is plain from all this 
that the congress of the United States, is, 
in fact as in name, a meeting of the states 
by representatives, where, in the theory of 
the constitution, they have assembled to 
transact business affecting them all. 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 41 

Perhaps it may be said that when the in- 
dividuals composing the representation of a 
state vote on opposite sides of a question 
in congress, it is they who act, and not the 
state. That would be equivalent to saying 
that they act for themselves and not for the 
state. This however cannot be, for they 
are representatives and have no right to 
vote in any other character than that of 
representatives of the state which sent them 
to act for it. They are the agents of the 
states, and according to a well known rule 
of law the act of the agent is the act of the 
principal in all matters within the scope of 
the agency. In the case of senators their 
votes are expressly called the voice of the 
state. Suppose one votes yea and the 
other nay on a question. The state in such 
a case is like a man who takes one step for- 
ward and one step backward. He walks 
but does not advance. The state acts, but 
does not accomplish anything ; or the state 
is like a man who, in attempting to lift an 
object from the ground, stands upon it. His 



42 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

strength would be lost by its contradictory 
exercise, but he nevertheless would be put- 
ting it forth. It cannot be said that the 
state acts in fractions. There is no such 
thing under the constitution as the repre- 
sentative of part of a state. Every repre- 
sentative represents the whole of it. It is 
common to speak of a member of congress 
representing a particular district. This is 
an error. Districts are not represented in 
congress. The constitution provides only 
for the representation of states. Dividing 
the state into districts affects merely the 
manner of choosing the representatives and 
not the quality of the representation. Thus 
it appears that the people of the United 
States exercise their legislative power as 
several political communities acting to- 
gether and not as an inseparable political 
entity. The voices of the states controll- 
ing legislation are also heard in the veto of 
their President. 

The constitution also provides that as 
several political communities acting by one 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 43 

agent they shall exercise their executive 
power. It says that the executive power 
shall be vested in a President of the United 
States, who shall be chosen by electors ap- 
pointed by the states. The President is 
not chosen by the people of the United 
States as an undivided community, but by 
them acting as separate communities. They 
do not assemble in a congress as they do 
when exercising their legislative power. 
They act separately in their own dominions. 
The title of the President shows that he is 
the magistrate of several communities and 
not of one. He is styled the President of the 
United States. He is not the president of 
the people of the United States. He is not 
the president of an aggregation of individ- 
ual men, each of whom exercises his suf- 
frage in electing him as an equal member of 
an undivided political community, but he is 
chosen by several communities acting sep- 
arately and who have not an equal voice in 
his selection, except in the case of his 
choice by the house of representatives. 



44 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

A final and emphatic proof that the peo- 
ple of the United States do not govern 
themselves as one political community, but 
as several, is found in the circumstance that 
the elective franchise is in the exclusive 
control of the states acting separately. 
Each state by itself determines who of its 
citizens shall have a right to vote within its 
territories. The possession of the elective 
franchise is the highest right of a freeman, 
and the conferring or withholding it is the 
highest exercise of sovereign power. That 
power the people of the United States ex- 
ercise as separate communities and not as 
one undivided political entity. The people 
of the United States as states, in their con- 
stitution, have not attempted to exercise it 
collectively. They have left it to the sep- 
arate authority of each state. All they say 
in the constitution is that a citizen of one 
state has the rights of the citizens of every 
other state. Of course, if the elective fran- 
chise be one, he has that. The conferring 
or withholding it is the exclusive right of 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 45 

each state. Other instances might be ad- 
duced, but enough has been said to prove 
conclusively that the people of the United 
States, in the theory of the constitution, 
govern themselves as several political com- 
munities, and not as one. 

V. 

It is another theory of the constitution 
that the states are sovereignties, and no 
greater proof of it could be given than the 
power to give to or withhold from its citi- 
zens a voice in the government. The peo- 
ple of the United States cannot give to a 
citizen of Massachusetts the power to take 
part with them in the government, but 
Massachusetts can. The same is true of 
every state in the Union. Here state sov- 
ereignty stands in shining garments before 
the mind's eye. But all over the land are 
men like Admiral Nelson at the battle of 
Copenhagen, who when looking at the sig- 
nal commanding him to bring his ships 



46 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

from under the Danish batteries, put a tele- 
scope to his blind eye and said, " I don't 
see it." They pretend they cannot see it 
because they look at it through the tele- 
scope of misrepresentation with an eye that 
has been put out by party prejudice. State 
sovereignty is not only recognized by the 
constitution, but it expressly says that each 
state shall aid the others in maintaining 
their sovereignty. Section 2, Article IV, 
directs that a person in any state charged 
with treason, who shall flee from justice, 
shall, on demand of the executive of the 
state from which he fled, be delivered up to 
be removed to the state having jurisdiction 
of the crime. Of course, this has reference 
to treason against a state, for no state has 
jurisdiction of treason against the United 
States. Now, treason is an offense against 
sovereignty, and this section, by an impli- 
cation that cannot be evaded, imputes sov- 
ereignty to the states, and commands them 
to aid any state against which treason has 
been committed in maintaining its sover- 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 47 

eignty by arresting the traitor and deliver- 
ing him over to such state. Nevertheless 
we are told that state sovereignty does not 
exist. There is no fact in our political ex- 
istence more susceptible of proof than state 
sovereignty. Nothing is more utterly un- 
deniable if we adhere to truth. 

Let us recapitulate. When the United 
States were colonies they were independent 
of each other. When they made the Dec- 
laration of Independence they declared 
themselves to be free and independent 
states, and made the declaration good by 
force of arms. When the revolutionary war 
was ended Great Britain acknowledged each 
of them to be a free, sovereign, and inde- 
pendent state. When the Union was formed 
under the confederation the states were 
sovereign and independent states, and by 
the Articles declared that they retained 
their sovereignty and independence. When 
our constitution was framed they were sov- 
ereign and independent states, and in it we 
see that their sovereignty is acknowledged 



48 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

and a provision made for its maintenance. 
That constitution is still in force, and the 
states under it exercise sovereign authority. 
To state the facts of history and law is to 
declare the existence of state sovereignty. 
And yet the idea is hooted at by a large 
class of people in the United States, most 
of whom, it would be safe to say, have never 
read the constitution. Indeed, it is not long 
since men who expressed a belief in state 
sovereignty were looked upon as traitors. 

VI. 

How did this state of affairs come to pass ? 
Ah ! thereby hangs a tale. It is a tale 
which has not been told except in tones of 
passion. The disbelief in the existence of 
state sovereignty was brought about by 
some of the states attempting to exercise 
the right by leaving the Union and being 
prevented from so doing by force of arms. 
It was a most illogical conclusion to draw 
from such premises. There is no argument 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 49 

in a blow. If a negro is told he is black 
and he denies it and knocks the man down 
who has told him the truth, he does not 
prove that the man lied. To be sure, his 
blow may prevent the man from telling him 
that particular truth again, but he will go 
to his grave a black man for all that. So it 
is with the southern states and secession. 
When they said they had the right to secede, 
and the northern states said they lied, and 
knocked them down, it did not prove that 
the southern states were wrong. It merely 
proved that they w T ere knocked down. 

Our constitution provided in express 
terms for secession from a union then ex- 
isting, which, when it was formed, was de- 
clared by all the states to be perpetual. At 
the time our constitution was framed the 
thirteen states formed a union under the 
Articles of Confederation, the title of which 
is "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual 
Union between the States." Yet our con- 
stitution provided that if nine of the thir- 
teen agreed to it, they would form a new 
4 



50 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

United States irrespective of the others. 
That is to say, about two-thirds of them 
agreed to secede from the other third. A 
secession actually took place, and the per- 
petual union was dissolved and a new one 
formed by the ratification of nine states 
two years before all of the thirteen states 
came into it. What greater right had the 
nine states to go out of the perpetual union 
which they had joined than the eleven 
states had to leave our Union which is not 
declared to be perpetual, and which contains 
in it a statement of intended secession from 
a union as binding as ours ? Certainly not 
any greater right, though they each had a 
perfect right to secede. Both unions w r ere 
formed by independent, sovereign states, by 
mutual agreement, and whenever sovereigns 
say they will not stand by their bargains 
nobody can gainsay them. Force is the 
only thing that can control them, but as has 
been before said, force proves nothing but 
force. The right to use it depends on some- 
thing antecedent to its exercise. Nothing 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 5 1 

could be more inconsistent than the action 
of the states which declared that the south- 
ern states had not the right to secede. 
They themselves had seceded from a union 
which they had declared to be perpetual. 
In the constitution forming the union which 
they said they took up arms to defend when 
they used force to prevent the southern 
states from seceding, they had declared an 
intention to secede from a union which they 
had deliberately entered intending never to 
leave. If anything could be more incon- 
sistent than this it is to be found in the 
fact that in their war against secession they 
actually destroyed the union which they 
claimed to be trying to preserve. 

A few considerations will prove this. If 
the ordinances of secession passed by the 
seceding states were void, then the states 
making them were still in the Union and 
liable to all the obligations imposed, and 
entitled to all the rights and privileges 
guaranteed, by the constitution. They were 
in the same condition in that respect as all 



52 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

the other states. Their political rights and 
duties in the Union were the same after 
passing the ordinances as they were before. 
The states which adhered to the Union de- 
clared these ordinances void. Each side 
acted on its convictions, and a war ensued, 
ending in the defeat of the armies of the 
states claiming the right to secede. What 
was their condition at the end of the war ? 
They were states in the Union, amenable to 
the constitution because the idea that their 
secession ordinances were void had pre- 
vailed. Nothing was changed politically. 
They had their state governments. They 
were completely organized communities. 
As states they were entitled to meet with 
the other states in the congress of the 
Union by their agents, the senators and 
representatives. They were not changed 
physically. Their territories were still 
contiguous to those of the other states, and 
were occupied by their citizens. Their 
people had not picked up their lands and 
emigrated with them. 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 53 

What, then, had happened ? The only 
conclusion that could rightfully be drawn 
from the doctrine of the Union states was 
that the people of the defeated states had 
engaged as individuals in a conflict against 
the laws of the Union, and had been con- 
quered and reduced to the condition of sub- 
ject rebels liable to the pains and penalties 
of the laws they had violated. Not one of 
the rebels, however, was tried by those 
laws. The northern states claimed that 
they had taken up arms in defense and by 
the authority of those laws, but in punish- 
ing the rebels they totally ignored them. 
They did not proceed against the individ- 
ual rebels at all, but against the states. 
They began the war by saying these states 
were still in the Union. They ended by 
saying that they were not only out of the 
Union but out of existence. They dis- 
covered in some mysterious way which has 
never been explained that the southern 
states had committed suicide. To be sure, 
the states had chief magistrates, legisla- 



54 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

tures, judiciaries, but these were merely 
gibbering spirits hovering over their own 
corpses. They had committed suicide ! 
The northern states said to the rebels: We 
will punish you for breaking the laws, but 
in order to do so effectually we will break 
them ourselves, and withdraw from you 
every protection which the constitution has 
thrown around you. You wanted to go out 
of the Union ? Well, we will kick you out 
and see how you like it. They did it, and 
put them under military government. They 
dissolved the Union. They put the south- 
ern states out of the Union by putting 
them out of existence. They denied the 
states every right guaranteed by the 
constitution, and put them under the do- 
minion of might alone. They destroyed 
the Union for a time and deprived nine 
millions of people, occupying a territory 
larger than France and Germany combined, 
of all right to govern themselves. If the 
secession ordinances were void, then the 
northern states had no justification for their 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 55 

conduct in depriving the seceding states of 
their governments and putting them under 
military law. If those ordinances were va- 
lid, then the seceding states were out of the 
Union from the moment of their passage, 
and the other states were to them foreign 
nations. 

In this view the late civil conflict was a 
war of aggression and conquest on the part 
of the northern states. This is practically 
what it was, and the more thoroughly and 
candidly the question is examined the more 
readily it will be admitted. The talk of 
treason and rebels is puerile. Every man 
in the seceding states owed allegiance to a 
state which possessed and exercised nearly 
every attribute to separate nationality. 
Each had a legislative body to make laws, 
a chief magistrate to see that they were 
executed, and a judiciary to determine the 
rights of its citizens under them. There 
was no condition of man, from the cradle to 
the grave, over which each of the seceding 
states did not claim and exercise jurisdic- 



56 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

tion among its citizens. When these states 
commanded, their citizens, over whom they 
had the power of life and death, were com- 
pelled to obey. It would be unfair to call 
the citizens of these states rebels, and to 
give that name to the states themselves 
would be absurd. To whom did they owe 
allegiance, and against whom did they re- 
bel ? They certainly did not owe allegiance 
to any of the other states. They had as 
much right to say that the northern states 
owed allegiance to them as the northern 
states had to claim their obedience by con- 
straining their action. The northern states 
in all their fury for the Union forgot that in 
forming it they had broken another union 
of which they had been members. They 
began their own existence as the present 
United States by an act of secession. What- 
ever other virtue they might claim, they 
could not arrogate to themselves consis- 
tency. They had no right to stigmatize se • 
cession in the other states as treason when 
they began their own existence in the 
Union by secession from another union. 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. S7 

The more the conduct of the northern 
states is looked into the more clearly the 
eye of reason perceives it to be destitute of 
justice. Nothing in our political existence 
gave them the right to do what they did. 
Section 3, Article III, of the constitution, 
defines treason in these words: "Treason 
against the United States shall consist only 
in levying war against them, or in adhering 
to their enemies, giving them aid and com- 
fort." It will be observed that in this arti- 
cle the United States is represented by the 
pronouns them and their, and that the crime 
is described to be one committed not against 
one political entity, but against several who 
are united. It is not committed against a 
community of natural individuals constitut- 
ing one state, but against a community of 
states which are united under and by virtue 
of the constitution. Now it will not be 
contended that the states which seceded 
committed treason against themselves. It 
was committed, if at all, against the states 
which remained united under the constitu- 



58 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

tion, and their authority to punish it was 
derived from that circumstance alone, and 
not from the fact of their being more num- 
erous or more powerful. Then it follows as 
a corollary that if all the states but Rhode 
Island and Delaware had seceded, these two 
could have proceeded against the others for 
treason and rebellion, and would have en- 
joyed alone the glorious privilege of making 
treason odious and the grand destiny of 
resurrecting dead states which had com- 
mitted suicide. 

The northern states cannot escape from 
this ludicrous conclusion involved in their 
premises that the seceding states were 
rebel states. If they attempt to justify 
themselves by assuming that it was the 
citizens who were guilty of treason and not 
the states, they meet another difficulty. In 
that case the citizens would be amenable to 
the laws, but it would be necessary to try 
them as individuals according to the proc- 
ess of law. They could not as one mass 
be legally deprived of all their rights as 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 59 

citizens, not only of the United States but 
of their own states, by an act of congress. 
This is exactly, however, what the north- 
ern states did. They withheld and con- 
ferred the elective franchise as it suited 
them, exercising a sovereign power which 
the United States under the constitution 
cannot exercise. The lurid imagination of 
fanatics suggested that the states had com- 
mitted suicide and that their citizens were 
political corpses which congress, exercising 
some divine power outside of the constitu- 
tion, could revive or let rot at pleasure. 
And this was done in the name of liberty ! 
Well might Madame Roland exclaim, "Oh! 
Liberty ! What crimes are committed in 
thy name ! " 

But we may congratulate ourselves, I 
hope, that these things were not done with 
the approbation of the American people. 
Proof of this is found in the fact that a very 
large minority of the people of the north- 
ern states were not in favor of them, and of 
the majority who were, many were embit- 



60 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

tered by the loss of friends and relatives in 
the war and were made easy dupes of de- 
signing demagogues who used the bleeding 
hearts of their countrymen as stepping- 
stones to the high places of the land. The 
victims, of course, did not approve of them, 
and they comprised the entire white 
population of eleven states. But leaving 
the constitution of the United States out 
of the question and going back to the prin- 
ciples of the Declaration of Independence, 
we find that the action of the northern 
states cannot be justified. That document 
declares as a self-evident truth that govern- 
ments derive their just powers from the 
consent of the governed. According to this 
doctrine nine millions of people, occupying 
a territory as large as two of the greatest 
empires of Europe and larger than that oc- 
cupied by the three millions of people who 
made the declaration, had certainly a right 
to govern themselves, and a government 
set over them against their consent had no 
just powers. If the government thus set 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 6l 

over them had allowed them a voice in it, 
the transaction would have been bad 
enough, but when it deprived them of such 
right it was simply an atrocious tyranny. 
This was the identical thing done by the 
northern to the southern states. It was 
aggravated by the circumstance that these 
nine millions of people were divided into 
eleven separate states, each having sov- 
ereign jurisdiction over particular portions 
of the territory they occupied, which sov- 
ereignty had been guaranteed by the con- 
querors in a solemn convention between 
them ; the constitution of the United 
States. When it is further remembered 
that the conquerors represented as an en- 
tirety a number of states, the inhabitants of 
which were divided in opinion and a large 
minority of whom disapproved of what their 
representatives did, the wrong is greatly 
magnified. The case does not represent an 
instance of government by the people for 
the people which a certain great man hoped 
would not perish from the earth. 



62 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

Again when we reflect that what was 
done to* these nine millions of people was 
not merely upsetting their political institu- 
tions and forcing upon them a government 
which they did not want, but was a total 
destruction of their domestic arrangements, 
affecting their entire social system, and that 
the people who did it had once been put in 
a blaze of patriotic excitement because the 
government under which they formerly 
lived had imposed a tax upon an article of 
food which they did not wish to pay, our 
minds are conscious of impressions which 
no words can adequately express. It was a 
transaction which gave the lie to every 
principle and act upon which our govern- 
ment was founded, and no true man will 
ever attempt to justify it on the ground that 
it was in conformity with the genius of our 
institutions. It was the result of two ideas 
which had entered the minds of men suffi- 
cient in number to control the machinery of 
the government of the United States at the 
time secession took place. These ideas 



THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 63 

were a desire to free negroes held in slavery 
and to keep under one general government 
the territory now occupied by the people 
of the United States. In carrying out these 
ideas history, law, and justice were disre- 
garded, and force alone was employed. It 
was the old story told with a dramatic 
effect the world has rarely seen. The emo- 
tion of the audience has not even now en- 
tirely subsided. The din and smoke of 
battle has so confused the senses not only 
of the participants in the fight, but of many 
of the lookers-on, that they do not yet per- 
ceive the truth. It is time, however, that 
the victors became aware that it was their 
muscles and not their morals that enabled 
them to prevail. Most of them, no doubt, 
were filled with a holy fire for noble ideas 
which they believed they had a right to en- 
force in the way they did and for which they 
would have gladly died. Deeds of splendid 
heroism and magnanimous sacrifice were 
performed on both sides. Only a grand 
nation could have produced such a col- 
ossal strife. The South fought for their 



64 THE NECKLACE OF LIBERTY. 

independence and their firesides, the North 
for the freedom of the slaves and the su- 
premacy of a national government over a 
vast territory which the genius and bravery 
of their common ancestors had acquired. 
Law and justice were on the side of the 
South, though the prevalence of the north- 
ern ideas was to be desired. It is only a 
pity that they could not have obtained sway 
except by violating every principle upon 
which our government is founded. Let a 
remembrance of this circumstance humble 
the pride of the victors. Or, better, let us 
forget that we are victors. Let us forget 
our battles and remember the civil war no 
more. Let us rather dwell on the achieve- 
ments of our ancestors who have builded a 
mountain of their deeds and placed our 
country upon it, so that all mankind may 
behold her from afar. There she stands 
to-day, the friend of every child of toil be- 
neath the sun, and the admiration of the 
world. We know she is young and that 
she is beautiful, and we should all love her, 
for we will all sleep on her bosom at last. 



